The Euston arch

• I WRITE further to the letter of Christopher Truman in which he rightly draws attention to the fact that the promise to restore the Doric arch, which formerly marked the entrance to Euston station, appears to have been shelved, (Arch promise is broken, December 1).

The demolition of the arch was an act of cultural vandalism by the Conservative administration of Harold Macmillan, which also commissioned the Beeching report which led to the closure of a third of Britain’s railways.

The then minister for transport, Ernest Marples, personally benefited from the destruction of the rail system due to his major shareholding within the motorway building company, Marples Ridgway. Shamefully, the incoming Labour government of 1964 did not reverse Dr Richard Beeching’s cuts.

Let us hope that prime minister Rishi Sunak heeds Mr Truman’s wise advice and arranges for the Euston Arch to be rebuilt.

KEELEY-JASMINE CAVENDISH
Thurlow Park Road, SE21